Because there is not an original idea left in Hollywood and also because Summit’s Step Up franchise has, over seven years and four films, morphed into one of the most dazzlingly insane and entertaining properties to pop and lock across our collective movie screens in decades, we’re getting a fifth Step Up film. I hesitate to use this word, but – duh.
Deadline Hollywood reports that the studio has picked rising screenwriter star John Swetnam to write the fifth installment of the franchise, proving that Swetnam’s apparent niche of penning found-footage thrillers doesn’t preclude him from writing a film about teen dancing. O-kay. Swetnam has previously written 2012’s Evidence, a film that no one saw but that apparently centered on a detective using found footage to solve a grisly gas station-set massacre, and the upcoming Black Sky, that found-footage tornado film once known as Category 6. Yes, he should most definitely write a Step Up film now.
The outlet also provides some insight into what the film might be about – it “will build to a big dance-off” and “the intention is to get the leads of the previous films to return in cameo roles.” Which, wait a moment, doesn’t provide any insight at all. Considering that the franchise has consistently used cameos from its former stars and even provided past stars with supporting roles in new entries to keep up with some wacky Step Up continuity (such pop-up cameo surprises were one of the reasons Step Up Revolution’s final number was damn raucous and crowd-pleasing), the news that the next film intends to do the same is just about as head-slappingly obvious as the news that it will include a large scale dance-off.
Cameos and a big dance-off? We are shocked! It sounds zippy, it sounds original, it sounds wow-y, it sounds…like every other Step Up film ever. Now you’re going to tell us it will be in 3D and that Step Up Revolution director Scott Speer will return to direct! What? That’s all true, too? Man. This project is shocking. (But it’s still worth dancing about.)
Step Up 5 should hit theaters sometime in 2014.
